Testifying before lawmakers about her politicized ouster from her post as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Yovanovitch was soft-spoken—if firm—throughout.
Sedate though she was, however, diplomats mostly saw her as the week’s hero.
“Masha’s testimony was a powerful moment in the impeachment drama,” Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told me Friday afternoon.
“She was compelling and utterly persuasive in asking how the president permitted corrupt individuals to convince him to fire her.
“I remain disappointed that the department’s leadership and others have declined to acknowledge that the attacks against me and others are dangerously wrong.
“The attacks are leading to a crisis in the State Department…This is not a time to undercut our diplomats.
It is hard to say what the impeachment inquiry will portend for Pompeo’s tenure at the State Department. »
